Arizona Border Sheriff: Obama Should Visit Grave of Murdered Rancher

Sheriff Larry Dever told CNSNews.com that if President Barack Obama visited Cochise County in Arizona he would show him evidence of a porous border and the gravesite of an American rancher who was gunned down on his property. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr).

(CNSNews.com) – Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, Ariz., which sits on the U.S.-Mexico border, says if President Barack Obama were to visit that county he would like to take him to visit the grave of rancher Robert Krentz who was shot and killed on his own property in March by an attacker who fled south on foot into Mexico.

The attacker shot both Krentz and his dog after Krentz had radioed his brother to tell him he saw an immigrant who appeared to be in trouble and that his brother should notify the Border Patrol.

“I’d take him to Rob Krentz’s gravesite,” Dever told CNSNews.com, following his appearance at an event earlier this month at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. “That’s where I’d take him.”

Krentz, who was 58 years old, was a prominent cattleman in CochiseCounty whose family had operated a ranch in the region for three generations.

After Krentz's dead body was found in his all-terrain vehicle about 1,000 feet from where he and his dog had been shot, Cochise County sheriff's office deputies, Border Patrol agents and dogs tracked a set of footprints 20 miles south from the scene of the murder to the Mexican border.

CNSNews.com asked Dever what he would show Obama if he could give the president a tour of CochiseCounty, a visit the sheriff said should be more than fleeting if the president wants to truly understand what is going on at the border.

“Come spend two or three days and camp out with one of my ranchers out in the areas where we’re getting hammered, and spend some time there,” Dever said. “When you’re trying to go to bed at night and things start going bump and you know that stuff is moving – that’s how you experience it.”

Dever said he also would show Obama the evidence of the high traffic flow along the U.S. and Mexico border in Arizona.

“Then I’d take him to the trash sites – the lay-up areas – where people just leave tons of garbage and human waste,” Dever said. “I’d take him and I’d show him the trails that come across the border that are as wide as a road and three feet deep from the incessant foot traffic going across.

“And then I’d take him to Rob Krentz’s gravesite,” Dever said. “That’s where I’d take him.”